What’s Your Best Business Skill?

Everyone is unique, everyone has their own special style and skills. As a business person, what are your best skills? What are the skills you struggle with most?

Are they the same thing?

It may just be that the thing we are best at is the thing we struggle with the most. And, if that’s the case, isn’t it the most worthwhile skill of all?

For me, it is talking about myself. At a network meeting yesterday, we were all asked to pair off and prepare our new partner to deliver a 1-minute commercial for our businesses. In other words, I would be making a presentation to the group promoting the business of the person next to me. Nerve-wracking? A bit. Fun? Definitely!

An interesting thing happened.

The presentations were much more personal than the average “Hi, I’m John Smith who owns [insert business] and we do [insert profession]”… In fact, the presentation that my partner did was simply wonderful. She made me look far better than I could have, ever.

Later, I put a lot of thought into why, and here’s what I came up with: When placed in a position of talking about anyone but ourselves, we entrepreneurs are very comfortable selling a person instead of a product. If we all could get better at saying things about ourselves that help people get to know us and trust us, our sales would skyrocket! But it’s not easy for a mostly-modest person to do, and even more challenging for a less-than-modest person one.

I think, though, that this is one of the most important skills we can learn as successful businesspeople: Be comfortable enough in your own skin to share your best person with others. The business will follow.